Asphalt Paving in Buena Park, CA

Asphalt paving in Buena Park is mostly a fight against sun and traffic. The city averages a daily high near 79 degrees across the whole year, only about 13.88 inches of rain, and record highs as hot as 111. Beach Boulevard, the city's main commercial artery, and the State Route 91 and Interstate 5 corridors carry heavy traffic into a city of about 10.5 square miles. Asphalt here rarely fails from frost. It fails from ultraviolet light drying out the surface, from water getting into cracks during the few big storms each winter, and from loads it was not built to carry.

What the sun does to asphalt

Asphalt is stone held together by a petroleum binder. Sunlight and air oxidize that binder over time, so a black surface fades to gray, loses its flexibility, and starts to shed fine aggregate. Small surface cracks follow. In a climate with this much sunshine, that process starts within a few years of paving. A seal coat applied after the asphalt has cured, and renewed every few years, slows it down and costs far less than resurfacing.

Built to code on commercial lots

Buena Park's zoning code sets minimums for commercial and industrial vehicle areas. Section 19.536.070 requires that areas used for parking, loading and driving be paved and maintained to eliminate dust and mud, with at least 1-1/2 inches of asphalt over a 4-inch aggregate base, or 3-5/8 inches of concrete. That is a floor, not a target. Truck routes, trash enclosures and loading docks usually need a heavier section, and we design to the traffic the lot actually sees.

The same chapter sets stall sizes (9 by 19 feet for standard commercial stalls), drive aisle widths (25 feet for 90-degree parking), and striping rules: nonresidential lots use double lines, each stripe at least 4 inches wide and at least 8 inches apart. When we restripe or lay out a lot in Buena Park, those dimensions are the starting point.

Driveways for postwar homes

Buena Park went from a farm crossroads to a suburb in a hurry. It incorporated in 1953, had 46,401 residents by 1960 and 63,646 by 1970. Many of its homes date from those two decades, and their driveways have been patched, sealed or overlaid more than once. When the base under a driveway has given out, an overlay only buys a year or two. We check before recommending either.

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Grind and repave

On lots and older driveways that have been overlaid before, adding another layer raises the surface above curbs, gutters and garage floors. Grinding (milling) the old surface down first keeps the finished height where it belongs and leaves a clean, rough face for the new asphalt to bond to. It is one of the most common jobs on older commercial properties in North Orange County.

A typical project

• Site visit to measure, check drainage and probe the base
• Written quote with removal, base, asphalt and striping as separate lines
• Removal or grinding of old pavement
• Base repair and compaction where the ground is soft
• Hot-mix asphalt placed and rolled to the stated thickness
• Seal coat after curing, and striping for lots

Buena Park sits right where Orange County meets Los Angeles County, so our service area crosses that line. On the Orange County side we work in Fullerton, Anaheim, La Palma, Cypress, Stanton, Garden Grove, Placentia, Brea, La Habra, Westminster and Los Alamitos. On the Los Angeles County side, we work in Cerritos, La Mirada, Norwalk, Artesia, Bellflower, Santa Fe Springs, Whittier, Hawaiian Gardens and Lakewood. Each city sets its own rules for work at the street, and the town pages explain what is different in each.